It wasn't until recently (during a conversation I had with Dave Popeck), that I was able to put my finger on exactly what it was that I really disliked about the new voting rules. I made a few points last week, but none really hit on exactly what it was that bothered me about the new rules.
One of the coolest things about a vote deck was that it was the most versatile type of deck you could build. There is just so much that you can do because there is a large variety of vote cards: Disputed Territory, Banishment, Protect Thine Own, Command of the Harpies, Peace Treaty, etc, etc, etc. The list goes on.
Now, to get more to the point. With the new rules, you are restricted to using 1 Political Action card per action. You are no longer able to use those Political Action cards to help push the current vote through. This now makes it alot like a Bleed deck. The similarity's I'm drawing is that the overall focus of the two deck archetypes are the same (you cause your prey to lose pool, whereas with a combat deck, it's focus is to cause your prey to lose vampires) *and* you can only use one Action card per vampire action (1 Bleed card v. 1 Policitcal Action card). I believe this to be a fair assessment.
Let's take a look at the composition of a bleed deck. The ones that I've seen generally consist of roughly 25% (maybe a bit more) bleed action cards. Any more and you are risking hand jam. This percentage will, generally, allow you consistant enough bleed actions to oust your prey (at least), and perhaps more. The rest of the deck will consist of reaction, combat, master cards, action mods, etc.
Before the new rulings, the Political Decks were composed of, generally, 60-70% of vote cards. You were able to use them not only for actions, but as extra votes. Now, the percentage needs to come down. Way down. To keep the votes consistently coming, you're going to need a percentage very similar to the one described above for bleed decks. Between 25 and 30%. Again, a low enough number to hopefully avoid hand jam but high enough to keep the actions coming consistantly.
My contention is this: Because you have lost so many card slots, in order for your deck to consistently be able to oust your prey, the only votes you will really be able to keep in your deck are the damaging votes: the KRC and the ConAg. The rest of those card slots are going to need to go to Action Mods like Bribes or Presence vote gain cards in order to help get your votes passed as you can no longer rely on using your other PA cards to help push the vote. So much for variety in Political Decks anymore. I don't know about everyone else, but I really liked putting cards like Praxis Solomon in my decks, just in case. I can no longer include cards like it, or Peace Treaty or the semi-frivilous votes in case they might help me out if need be. Now, I'm relegated to 2 votes if I want to be able to oust my prey, be consistant about it and avoid hand jam. At least Bleed decks have the ability to use action modifiers to increase the damage. Not so in the case of Political Decks
What do I hate about the new rule? The fact that it turned one of the most versatile deck archetypes in the game into one of the most limited.